Sovereign AI Fund

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what strategy they have to ensure that the Sovereign AI Fund will support sovereign AI infrastructure and reduce public sector dependence on foreign hyperscale cloud providers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Baroness Lloyd of Effra) (Lab)]

The sovereign AI fund will support early-stage British start-ups at strategically important parts of the AI value chain, including AI infrastructure and compute. It is not designed to replace foreign cloud providers or achieve total UK self-sufficiency. Instead, the fund seeks to reduce our strategic dependence and ensure that the UK has a stake in a world economy transformed by AI.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the Secretary of State has said that Britain

“must be an AI maker, not an AI taker”,—[Official Report, Commons, 18/3/26; col. 55WS.]

and the sovereign AI unit’s own chair has promised British start-ups a guaranteed route to government contracts. But even the AI Minister, Mr Narayan, has admitted that procurement is too hard for British start-ups across government. So when will public procurement, in particular the G-Cloud framework, be reformed to match that promise? Will “sovereign AI” not remain just a slogan without that?